The essay was co-authored by AdaptNY editor and Harlem Heat Project coordinator A. Adam Glenn, with urban ecologist Zoé Hamstead of the University at Buffalo School of Architecture & Planning and Timon McPhearson, chair of the environmental studies program and director of the Urban Ecology Lab at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School in New York City.

Most of the residences Harlem Heat Project gathered heat index data from this summer found indoor temperatures were hotter than outdoors. (Graphic: Brian Vant-Hull, Prathap Ramamurthy, City College)

Indoor air temperatures in apartments in the Harlem section of Manhattan were up to 7 degrees hotter this summer than outdoor temperatures, creating hidden dangers for residents, according to field data gathered by AdaptNY’s Harlem Heat Project reporting initiative.

In New York City this July and August, the average outdoor temperature in the area was 83 degrees Fahrenheit. But during that same period, average indoor temperatures at the Harlem residences reached over 90 degrees.

That’s per City College researcher scientists Prathap Ramamurthy and Brian Vant-Hull, who shared the findings at a community workshop on Oct. 15.

The data was gathered as part of the summer-long initiative in which community-based citizen scientists placed digital sensors in 30 apartments around northern Manhattan starting in July. Thousands of data points were collected, with temperatures and relative humidity measured in each residence every 15 minutes. Continue reading →

The Harlem Heat Project’s Julia Kumari Drapkin, who had come to New York with her infant son to take part in the initiative’s Oct. 15 community workshop, nodded across the room to Helen Jones, a Harlem resident and host to one of the projects heat index sensors, who sat rocking her own grandson’s baby carriage.

“Helen’s sensor was hot this summer!” exclaimed Drapkin. “Her grandson was so hot he had to take showers to cool down.”

The exchange was one of the more poignant during a four-hour-long gathering at New York’s City College of non-profit professionals, community organizers, public health researchers, weather experts, and urban planners, along with some of the Harlem residents whose homes were outfitted with the sensors this summer. Continue reading →

One idea to come out of the Harlem Heat Project workshop was to plant community gardens on the roofs of buildings, and “vertical farms” on the exterior walls. (Photo: Sarah Holder, AdaptNY)

To conclude its three months of research, outreach and storytelling this past summer, the four organizations that pioneered the Harlem Heat Project held a community workshop Oct. 15. Participants in the project, as well as invited experts from the fields of public health, architecture, emergency management and climate change, brainstormed ways to alleviate the risks of extreme heat in cities. Here are their ideas: Continue reading →

Every 15 minutes, temperature sensors built by WNYC and its partners in the Harlem Heat Project have been recording temperatures inside 30 Harlem apartments. All day. All night.

We wanted you to hear what the heat in Harlem sounds like on an average summer day. So the WNYC Data News team looked at the average heat index throughout the day and turned each feels-like temperature into a musical note. We then condensed a full 24 hours of readings into 20-second songs: one for the outdoor temperature, and one for the indoor temperature. Continue reading →

The web news video show Huffington Post Rise recently profiled AdaptNY’s Harlem Heat Project in a two-and-a-half-minute video that features an interviews with participants from our community-based partner in the project.

In the clip, West Harlem resident Shaun Williams, who hosts one of our heat index sensors in his home, shares his experience of high heat. Also, Huffington Post spoke with policy expert Aurash Kharwarzad of our partner WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Kharwarzad explains the urban heat island effect and its health impacts on city residents, as well as the workings of the sensor and our participatory research project, and possible solutions to the heat challenge.